Manifest

Thirty-one

Eddie followed the woman obediently.

She hadn't offered to help with his fingers or anything. She'd shown up and jerked him in the direction he was currently walking in. He didn't even ask where he was going. Not that he cared.

He'd called for Enyong like a fool. Look where he'd led them.

"In here," the woman said, gesturing at a hut, a little closer to the bushes than any of the others were.

Inside, there was nothing. It was a bare, mud hut with sand on the floor and rough walls. No bed. No chair. No stool. Not even a mat. And there was nothing he could do about it.

Barbaric women.

When time ran out and Abasi Isong won, Eddie was going to live. But for how long? Another five years? Twenty? Thirty? How long before his father's cancer showed up? How long before he got in a car accident like his mother?

Four hundred years of nothing but prolonged youth and agility and health.

He envied the chief, her longevity. He also hated her with a passion.

He sat up, pulling his wrecked fingers closer, when one of the women walked into the hut. From his place on the floor, he could see people hanging lanterns in the distance. The sun was going down and they were already preparing for night. Someone banged a drum, somewhere and let it echo into nothing. A bunch of people were clapping and a loud, group humming could be heard.

"Take," the woman said, tossing a transparent cup with a lid at him.

Eddie didn't try to catch it, so it hit his chest and roll onto the floor.

"What's it for?"

The woman left.

If she didn't think it was important enough to explain, then he wasn't going to consider it important, at all.

Instead, he focused on his broken finger. It remained crooked. Eddie held it in his left hand and closed his eyes. It was nothing. Just a little reset. It would hurt but be over in a minute. In a second. Barely a moment.

As he tightened his fist around it, the twisted joint rubbed together, and he sobbed. Eddie pressed it back. It wouldn't move. Instead, it just wavered on the spot and continued to stay in place. He braced himself and took a deep breath, pulling it forward the exact moment he exhaled as the finger snapped back into place.

He controlled the scream that threatened to spill from his lips by balling his other hand into a fist and shoving it into his mouth. As the drumming and clapping began to rise, outside, it occurred to him no one would hear his scream, anyway. Not as if they cared. They knew he was in there. They knew he was in pain. He had no reason to hide his discomfort.

He screamed. He cried till his nose was running. He hated himself for his stubbornness. It wasn't even as if he had any actual use. There was nothing he could do about the situation. He had put Enyong in danger because, for all his pride and pretense, Eddie was a weak, coward who had given up his anointing for nothing.

He'd been so wrapped up in his anger and his need to hold onto a mundane existence he'd missed a great blessing that had been handed to him by chance.

Except, it hadn't been by chance.

His father did this.

Eddie hadn't made the connection till he was crying in an empty hut. His father had been pouring his drinks on the exact spot Enyong woke from. He'd been doing research. He'd left Eddie and his mother back in Owerri and returned to Antaikot where he'd developed the religious habit of pouring drinks on the ground.

Looking for a cure for his disease, Mma Ubon had said.

His father had gone in search of a miracle and had found Abasi Enyong. He knew what he was doing. He'd been drawing Enyong to him so he could be the hand of god. That was the cure he'd been looking for. And yet, when he knew he was dying, when he'd been certain he'd never make it to the awakening, he'd made Eddie promise to continue.

He'd given Eddie his only hope.

Everything would have turned out better, if he had just-

His little finger itched. Absentmindedly, Eddie scratched the ridge of the finger. When he stopped, it continued to itch. As he looked down at the finger, the pain was gone. There was no ebbing ache of a reset finger. In place of the pain, the finger just continued to itch. Shocked, hopeful but trying to curb the excitement within him, he prodded the finger and pushed it back and forth, registering the utter lack of pain.

Well, now, he thought as he leaned back against the wall. Of course, she'd been lying. Eddie should have known. Abasi Isong needed him to fear for his life, so she'd lied, and he'd believed her like the fool that he was.

When the sun set the next day, Eddie was still going to die.